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It's important to note that none of these achievements are AI-related (apart from character recognition, but that's a terribly shallow form of AI). What's more

It's important to note that none of these achievements are AI-related (apart from character recognition, but that's a terribly shallow form of AI). What's more, none of these are particularly impressive from a technology point of view, what's interesting are just the product ideas.

michaelochurch 14y ago
People who have the autonomy and backing to do "real AI" and have those kinds of achievements don't change jobs often. If someone has real accomplishments in AI, that person's going to be very hard to hire away, because quality jobs are rare. For all the hullabaloo, Director isn't that high at Google. He's not being hired as a VP (there are hundreds of those) or Google Fellow. It's not a bad gig, and I'm sure he'll get to work on interesting stuff, but I would have imagined a guy of his caliber getting more.
CptCodeMonkey 14y ago
> none of these are particularly impressive from a technology point of view It's the "first" part that somewhat matters more and then it become's a question of whether he's more Edison or Tesla ( crazy marketing or crazy smart). Also he's been put into a Director role, so his technical merits come second to his ability to find, understand, and cultivate the smart people needed for his department's goals.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Yeah, my impression is that the level of his title is fairly irrelevant. The whole thing is just to give him the ability to hire a team and have access to Google resources, from which they're hoping he'll produce something good.
  - CptCodeMonkey 14y ago
    One point in my life I worked for a third tier search engine provider with 160-210 million unqualified identities. Basic search term aggregation was illuminating. If Ray K. can go another step beyond statistical analysis, the results could be fascinating... or it could just be "People aren't wearing enough hats" of a let down. edit: identities, not impressions
oh_sigh 14y ago
What do you mean "from a technology point of view"? Perhaps it doesn't seem impressive to you because you've grown up in a world that takes these achievements for granted. Your statement is like saying calculus isn't an impressive mathematical achievement because any moderately competent math major in college could recreate it.
- Angostura 14y ago
  Well, given that we had CCDs and photocopiers, which bit of the flat-bed scanner is that impressive?
  - oh_sigh 14y ago
    Why are you focusing on the photocopier? Also, yes, those things existed, but there was no solution available that was so affordable and reasonable for personal use.
anigbrowl 14y ago
none of these are particularly impressive from a technology point of view Well, not now.

michaelochurch 14y ago

People who have the autonomy and backing to do "real AI" and have those kinds of achievements don't change jobs often. If someone has real accomplishments in AI, that person's going to be very hard to hire away, because quality jobs are rare. For all the hullabaloo, Director isn't that high at Google. He's not being hired as a VP (there are hundreds of those) or Google Fellow. It's not a bad gig, and I'm sure he'll get to work on interesting stuff, but I would have imagined a guy of his caliber getting more.

CptCodeMonkey 14y ago

> none of these are particularly impressive from a technology point of view It's the "first" part that somewhat matters more and then it become's a question of whether he's more Edison or Tesla ( crazy marketing or crazy smart). Also he's been put into a Director role, so his technical merits come second to his ability to find, understand, and cultivate the smart people needed for his department's goals.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
Yeah, my impression is that the level of his title is fairly irrelevant. The whole thing is just to give him the ability to hire a team and have access to Google resources, from which they're hoping he'll produce something good.
- CptCodeMonkey 14y ago
  One point in my life I worked for a third tier search engine provider with 160-210 million unqualified identities. Basic search term aggregation was illuminating. If Ray K. can go another step beyond statistical analysis, the results could be fascinating... or it could just be "People aren't wearing enough hats" of a let down. edit: identities, not impressions

oh_sigh 14y ago

What do you mean "from a technology point of view"? Perhaps it doesn't seem impressive to you because you've grown up in a world that takes these achievements for granted. Your statement is like saying calculus isn't an impressive mathematical achievement because any moderately competent math major in college could recreate it.

Angostura 14y ago
Well, given that we had CCDs and photocopiers, which bit of the flat-bed scanner is that impressive?
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  Why are you focusing on the photocopier? Also, yes, those things existed, but there was no solution available that was so affordable and reasonable for personal use.

anigbrowl 14y ago

none of these are particularly impressive from a technology point of view Well, not now.